Skwid, in a stunning reversal, loaned me a graphic novel last week. While I was reading it, Brandon Sanderson announced the completion of the Wheel of Time series, which in turn reminded me that I’ve got this Kindle full of the series and have not read half of it but once nor in many years. (Well, a third of it, for sure.) And I might just have enough time to get the whole thing done (and still read a few other things) before the final book is published. The upshot of which is I cannot tell if I read the first (or so) of the Wheel of Time graphic novels at the best or worst possible time. At the very least, I’m pretty sure I could have safely skipped ahead to the chapter where this story leaves off even if I hadn’t just read it in visual form. Y’know, if I were / turn out to be so inclined.

So anyway, I’m not going to talk about the plot; what would be the point? The art is interesting. The people are not quite well enough differentiated for me, in many cases, though I was getting better at it by the end. There is very offputting scene in which Moiraine looks like a happy anime chick, if anime had never developed stylizations for “happy”. (But then, I think to myself, the book described her in that moment as clapping in girlish delight, if I am remembering the scene right. So maybe the art is right and the rest of my Moiraine perceptions are coloring me in the wrong direction?) By and large, I think they did justice to the story, both in terms of certain panel experiments[1] and in terms of the general look of things / people. Pacing is going to destroy the project long before it comes to fruition, though.

(Then again, the source project was completed despite pacing issues so profound that the author was completed years sooner, so what do I know?)

[1] Particularly the story of Manetheren, with which I have a certain resonance.